Photography tips for a point-and-shoot camera

Following on from my fashion blog photography tips I thought I’d do another one for those of you that don’t have a DSLR and won’t be purchasing one any time soon. Here are some point and shoot camera tips for fashion bloggers.

Equipment

I do occasionally take outfit photos with my basic compact camera. I have a Canon IXUS 220 HS (bought a while ago, now retailing for £184.99 on Amazon).

To be honest, I don’t really rate it. The previous model was much better.

I don’t think the type of compact camera you have makes a huge amount of difference here. If you go for the high-end point and shoot cameras like the Nikon 1 J1 or Canon EOS M (both of which are actually classed as compact DSLRs) then you will see a difference but you can get half decent results with most sub-£200 point-and-shoot cameras.

Just make sure you get one with a self-timer.

As I mentioned in the previous post, the tripod is your friend. Mine is a very basic tripod that was bought for about £10.

Self-shooting with a tripod

Set up the tripod and attach your camera to it. Most compacts will have a screw point in the bottom where you an attach it. If it doesn’t then you’ll have to fashion some way to hold it. I’m sure you can work that out.

You’ll then need to set the self-timer and jump in front of the camera. Pull a pose, wait for the picture to take then go from there.

Learn to edit

It might sound time consuming but learning to edit your photos will really make up for colour issues with less-than-sophisticated cameras. I’d recommend Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom but they are expensive. There are free photo editors though, like GIMP.

My camera seems to get really confused in my conservatory. I think it assumes that I’m outside so produces a really dark photo. All I had to do in order to lighten it up was adjust the curves in Lightroom. What you’re looking for is nice S-shape on the curve graph.

Improvise

It’s not always easy to take a full-body shot. Experiment with angles, hold the camera up high to get a wider shot, or get someone else to take the photo for you.

Ask a friend

The joy in asking a friend to take a photo of you with a basic camera is that they won’t look at it in terror. Most people know how to use a camera and shouldn’t struggle to take a few quick snaps with half-decent composition.

Details

It’s so much easier to get detail shots with a compact camera than it is with a DSLR. It’s just easier to hold it out and snap a necklace or your shoes. If you can only get one good full-length shot then the rest of your images should focus on the little details.

Most point-and-shoot cameras have a macro setting (usually a little flower symbol) this is great for picking out close up details such as charms on bracelets, heel detail on shoes and patterns on clothes.

Make-up

A lot of fashion bloggers are great at make-up but think that because they aren’t a beauty blog, they shouldn’t be talking about their faces.

Don’t forget to get one or two shots of your face. Especially if you are wearing a particularly bold lipstick or are trying something new with your hair.

You don’t have to go into detail about what you did to achieve the look but it gives readers more of an idea of your whole style.